Brutal Legend - An EA Game

Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:26 pm by niteowl1980

Brutal Legend is the latest game from Tim Schafer, the designer behind Psychonauts, Grim Fandango and The Secret of Monkey Island. A project that Schafer has been trying to get completed since just after the much-lauded Psychonauts hit the Xbox back in 2005.

The main draw point of this game is the involvement of Jack Black who voices the main character Eddie Riggs. A veteran roadie who sees his place in life to live in the shadows, saving the day for metal bands without ever being noticed. After an accident during a metal gig where he is knocked down by a piece of falling stage, he wakes up in an alternate dimension where his roadie skills will truly be tested freeing an enslaved human race from the evil Lord Doviculus and winning over the love of the female lead Ophelia, armed with an axe, The Separator, and your trusty guitar, Clementine.

You can choose how to play this game and the choices you make will determine the length of your gaming experience and the amount of achievements available to you. You can simply progress straight through the main story, which only takes about six hours, or if you choose the completionist route, you can fully explore the world in your car Duece. Here you can pick from up to thirty side missions or search for a number of different types of collectibles ranging from rescuing imprisoned serpents to finding hidden legends detailing the past history of the world you are in. As you progress through the main story arc you begin to find that a number of the levels use a real time strategy element that I really was not expecting when I first started playing the game. This starts with base building (a rock stage), then resource management (funnelling the power of your fans through constructing merchandising stands), so that you can build and upgrade your various units ready for battle.

The game does offer a good varied system of upgradable attacks that are normally activated by Eddie performing a guitar solo (the Face Melter being my favourite), and combo attacks that will be familiar to anybody who has ever played a hack and slash style game. You can also combine Eddie with a number of different characters and creatures to create more unique and powerful attacks.

The online multiplayer mode is a one to eight-player strategy game using the RTS elements that are unlocked throughout the game. Playing as one of three factions you divide into two opposing teams with the aim to destroy the stages of the opposition players. This game mode is surprisingly fun and you are able to command quite a few different types of units into battle and the online matchmaking system seems very slick and easy to use. The battles look great with a lot of detail going into the different unit types and alterations made to them by upgrading. However, I would suggest that anyone wanting to try the multiplayer modes either works through a good chunk of the story first or tries this game mode playing against the computer AI first, as otherwise you will find the multiplayer very confusing and unsatisfying. I feel that this is a game mode that could have really set this game apart from the crowd but unfortunately I have found a distinct lack of players trying out the multiplayer and have only been able to find one other human player at a time. This usually leads to each player camping at one their own end of the map and spending about twenty minutes simply upgrading your base and units before one of you has enough confidence to go charging across the map into battle.

Fans of Jack Black will not be disappointed. He is given a huge amount of cool dialogue that will keep you laughing right the way through the game. It is clear he has completely immersed himself in this role and loves every minute of it. The supporting cast of metal legends including Ozzy Osborne, Lemmy and Rob Halford are similarly great in this game. The script is full of clever one-liners and the many references to metal are done in a very original and fun way. You will find that you keep playing just to see how Eddie reacts to the world around him and to the crazy events that are unfolding around him. The fact that he is so quick to accept the situation he finds himself in is handled in such a way that it does have you just accept the story as it progresses. Likewise, fans of vintage metal will be in their element here as the whole environment and the characters in it are loosely based on albums by metal bands. There is even a GTA style radio in Eddies’ car which allows the player to flick through over 100 songs chosen by Schafer for the game.

Overall I feel that this is a game that will appeal to a broad spectrum of gamers, especially Jack Black or metal fans. However, this game seems to suffer a major identity crisis, drawing elements from three main game types (hack and slash, free roaming mission based and real time strategy), it never manages to blend them fully into one cohesive game style. It sometimes seems like those involved in this game were too busy enjoying the metal concept that they forgot to address the core game play. When you strip away the involvement of Black and the metal references it just doesn’t seem to stand on its own as a solid gaming experience. But the amount of fun that you will have playing the games does make up for that and you will really be rooting for Eddie Riggs. I think it would have been a much better idea to follow more of the hack and slash style of adventuring that this game starts with but then only offer fleeting glances of through the later stages. The story leaves the game open for a sequel and I think that this is a game that would truly benefit from Schafer having another go at now that he has managed to indulge his metal inspired fantasies. Overall then I would give this game a rocking 8 out of 10.

Comments: 1

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